Video Cards & GPUs News - Page 23

AMD's Radeon RX 7700 XT has never been cheaper, having dropped considerably with pricing over in the US right now.

VideoCardz spotted that the ASRock Challenger RX 7700 XT graphics card has been reduced to $399.99 over at Newegg, meaning it's the first time this GPU has ever sunk below the $400 mark (just).

The actual price is $449.99, but there's a discount code to get $50 off with no strings attached, you just need to apply it at checkout.

The GeForce RTX 40 Series SUPER is rumored to be launching in January 2024, with three SKUs: a GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, and GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. There is a massive influx of new, beefed-up GPUs, so you might think that would be it for NVIDIA's Q1 2024 GeForce plans. Well, that doesn't look to be the case, as early 2024 will present a big shake-up for GeForce RTX.

Granted, all of this is rumor - via sources that are said to be NVIDIA partners - but it does sound spot-on. First up, as previously reported, NVIDIA is set to sunset the GeForce GTX line-up of entry-level GPUs - no more GeForce GTX 16 Series cards will be produced after Q1 2024.

This brings us to the redesigned GeForce RTX 3050 for desktop gaming, a cutdown 6GB version of the 8GB model available today that will launch in February 2024 for $179 US.

AMD's FSR 3 and Frame Generation technology works similarly to its upscaling FSR 2 tech - it supports GeForce RTX and Radeon RX GPUs. It took a while from announcement to becoming a thing, especially as DLSS 3 and Frame Generation became a hot topic.

Last week's update and full open-source source code release of FSR 3, alongside its improved implementation in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, felt like the 1.0 launch we've been waiting for. And now, as we close out 2023, there's a new mod style that replaces DLSS 3 with FSR 3 in any game that features NVIDIA's tech.

Why would you replace DLSS 3 Frame Generation with AMD's FSR 3? That comes down to NVIDIA's tech being exclusive to the latest GeForce RTX 40 Series of graphics cards - using new specialized AI hardware. AI doesn't power FSR 3, so modding FSR 3 into Cyberpunk 2077 allows the millions of GeForce RTX 20 Series and GeForce RTX 30 Series gamers out there to enable Frame Generation and get a sizable boost to in-game performance.

NVIDIA's purported new spin on the RTX 4090 graphics card is set to go on sale come December 28, according to a fresh rumor.

This is the RTX 4090 D which is for the Chinese market only, a cut-down version expressly produced for the purpose of side-stepping the ban on powerful AI GPUs which has also prevented NVIDIA's standard RTX 4090 from being shipped to China.

The rumor comes from Chinese site Expreview - so heap on the skepticism here, as it's not one of the more reliable channels on the grapevine - and it's surprisingly early.

At SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 in Sydney, Intel showcased an interesting new technology called ExtraSS as part of its XeSS framework for boosting rendering performance. XeSS, Intel's AI-powered upscaling answer to NVIDIA DLSS, looks to be getting its own (and very different) version of Frame Generation.

With the debut of the GeForce RTX 40 Series, NVIDIA introduced a new performance-boosting bit of technology called Frame Generation as part of its updated DLSS 3 suite.

Leveraging the advanced AI hardware and capabilities of the company's new Ada Lovelace architecture, the performance increase arrives via creating and generating new frames. Mix in latency reduction tech like NVIDIA Reflex, and it's no secret that DLSS 3 has been one of the most talked about PC gaming features in the past year- a massive increase in perceived in-game performance with excellent image quality.

European retailer Proshop has listed 24 different NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 SUPER graphics cards on its website, with each of the cards pictured using the RTX 4090, and most likely a mistake in the end.

RTX 4090 SUPER listings (source: ProShop)

Proshop has NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 SUPER graphics cards listed from the likes of ASUS, MSI, Inno3D, and other AIB partners from across the planet. Proshop itself operates business in multiple European countries, so we should expect these RTX 4090 SUPER listings to be a mistake... but I'm sure most gamers wish the RTX 4090 SUPER were real.

It's a blast from the past as MSI is bringing back one of its most visually interesting GPU designs from over a decade ago - the Cyclone. In our review of the MSI GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Cyclone II from 2011, a mid-range under-$200 GPU, the single large fan and surrounding 'cyclone' delivered excellent results that matched the card's unique design.

As spotted by @harukaze5719 over on X/Twitter, the new MSI GeForce RTX 4060 CYCLONE 8G OC brings this classic design back with a modern spin. "The whirlwind is back," proclaims the GPU product listing - albeit this time in ultra-efficient Ada Lovelace form.

You can probably chalk up the main reason for the Cyclone's return to Ada's excellent efficiency - where the 115W TDP of the GeForce RTX 4060 means companies can look toward releasing smaller form-factor cards. Or, dip into the past to bring back a cool design that focuses on efficient cooling.

A single customer sent 19 flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards to repair professional and YouTuber "NorthridgeFix" because most of them had cracked PCBs close to the retention finger on the end of the PCIe card. Check it out:

We don't know what the source of this damage is exactly, but we do know that the RTX 4090 -- in any form, from any AIB -- is pretty heavy, with hefty cooling solutions for NVIDIA's flagship gaming GPU. NorthridgeFix says that he's seen this issue before, but getting so many in a single round is strange.

He had 19 different RTX 4090 cards sent to him in both ASUS and GIGABYTE custom cards, where the cracks were only found on the ASUS RTX 4090 cards. This doesn't just happen out of nowhere, but it could be because system builders were shipping pre-built gaming systems with the RTX 4090 pre-installed, and it went through some not-so-great transport.

AMD has updated its FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3) technology on GPUOpen to include the full source code for DirectX 12 and Unreal Engine 5 implementation for developers. FSR 3, which includes Frame Generation support for a wide range of AMD Radeon RX and even NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs, is the company's answer to the wildly successful and popular DLSS 3 that debuted with the GeForce RTX 40 Series.

FSR 3's rollout has been slow, with only a handful of titles supporting AMD's version of Frame Generation that, like its Super Resolution technology, doesn't require specialized AI hardware. But, FSR 3's most recent appearance - ion Ubisoft's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora - showcased the best version of the technology to date.

Not only with improvements to overall image quality but also support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) displays - an omission that baffled reviewers and gamers when the tech launched in Square Enix's Forspoken and EA's Immortals of Aveum.

Intel Arc 'Game On' driver updates and releases over the past year have been a string of good news stories for the company's first foray into discrete graphics cards for PC gaming. From a massive boost in DirectX 11 performance that has seen double-digit improvements to smoothness and overall frame-rate performance, there has also been a gigantic 2.7X increase in AI performance.

With the launch of the new Meteor Lake-powered Core Ultra series of processors for laptops overnight - which are available with integrated Intel Arc graphics, many have wondered if Intel's steady stream of driver releases for day-one game support and performance increases for older titles will be available for those that pick up a new Core Ultra laptop.

The answer is yes, and this can be seen with the latest Intel Graphics Driver release for Intel Arc GPUs (31.0.101.5081 WHQL and 31.0.101.5122 WHQL), which includes support for the Intel Core Ultra processor family.